Dusty Wright's Culture Catch - Smart Pop Culture, Video & Audio podcasts, Written Reviews in the Arts & Entertainment

If We Could Find Woodstock Again

Dusty Wright — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 13:56:10 +0000

If We Could Find Woodstock Again Dusty Wright August 16, 2019 - 09:56

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Croz was just in New York City, full of joy, bigger than life. The 77-year old David Crosby played a spectacular set of music mixing in CSN&Y, solo, and new material at Lincoln Center's Guggenheim Bandshell at Damrosch Park on Sunday night, August 11th, with his new band Sky Trails -- lead guitarist Jeff Pevar (Steely Dan, Phil Lesh, Marc Cohn, et al.), drummer David DiStanislao (David Gilmour, Don Felder), Mai Leisz (Greg Leisz' wife ), keyboardist/vocalist Michelle Willis, and musical director/keyboardist/son James Raymond. Historic in the fact that it was 50 years prior that he and CSNY debuted at Woodstock. As I sat there I couldn't believe how amazing his voice sounded, how tight the vocal harmonies were, how hard he and his band rocked "Ohio" (encore) and "Wooden Ships." His passion for sharing his music is infectious and defies his tumultuous personal life -- addictions, love lost, prison, broken friendships. Even his failing health can't keep him down.

Wandering around the VIP section at the outdoor venue was writer/producer/filmmaker Cameron Crowe, producer of David's new heart-wrenching documentary Remember My Name (Sony Pictures Classic). I mentioned to him that we share a friend in common and I was planning on seeing his documentary soon.

Well, I saw it on Thursday afternoon, day one of the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. It is not a perfect documentary, but then no documentary on David Crosby could be. Our heroes are not perfect. None of us are perfect. Yes, he's left in his wake too many broken relationships; his own insecurities fueling his drug addictions and self-sabotage. There are no interviews with any of six children or current interviews with Neil Young, Graham Nash, or Stephen Stills. He torched those bridges with his musical comrades and has yet to rebuild them. And yet he's very contrite and honest in sharing his reckless regard of those very precious friendships. The doc most certainly functions as a massive mea culpa to anyone he has wronged, both living and dead.

Regardless of his own personal demons, one can't deny his influence on seminal rock acts The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash/Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young/Crosby & Nash. His first solo album If Only I Could Remember My Name (1971), written in the wake of the tragic loss of his true love Christine Hinton, remains a timeless and difficult-to-categorize classic. Graham Nash has gone on record stating that the loss of Christine was massive: "I watched a part of David die that day." And so did a piece of David's heart and his ability to process fame and stardom.

Born and raised in Hollywood, his father Floyd was an Academy Award winning American cinematographer for the movie Tabu: A Story of the South Seas and shot the movie High Noon, et al. He claims in the doc that his father never told him or his brother that he loved them. Perhaps that fueled his "anger" and his anti-authoritarian and impetuous behavior throughout most of his career. And yet as David's life winds down and he deals with his health -- liver transplant, heart attacks and stents, diabetes -- his need for music and playing it live remain front and center, even if it means he might not make it back home to his wife Jan and his dogs.

When pressed by Cameron Crowe in the documentary:

"If I were to say, no music but you get extreme joy in your home life... do you make that trade?"

Without hesitation, David replies:

"No music? No, not interested. It's the only thing I've got to offer, really."

In the spirit of Woodstock, I would implore you to witness David's tour and watch Cameron's must-see documentary. I found myself singing along with so many of the classic tunes and even misting up when David bared his soul. If one must suffer for one's art, then David's life has been fueled by undeniable chaos even while delivering so many memorable and heartfelt musical moments.

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When Did They Arrive?

Leah Richards — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 13:19:08 +0000

When Did They Arrive? Leah Richards August 15, 2019 - 09:19

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off broadway

Photo Credit: Mike Esperanza

Those Before Us

Written by Stephen Carrey-Chan, Jesse Carrey, Kimberly Dodson, Alex Spieth, and Katya Stepanov

Directed by Jesse Carrey

Presented by Rebis at Nolan Park, Governors Island, NYC

August 1-11, 2019

Typically, audiences are asked to turn their cell phones off at the beginning of a performance. That is very much not the case with Rebis's Those Before Us. Rebis, which celebrated its one-year anniversary on August 11, takes as its mission, according to its website, to "create interactive, immersive, story-driven content which integrates the audience into the heart of the narrative." With the free production Those Before Us, Rebis plunges audience members into a network of historical narratives wrapped in a science-fiction conceit and allows them to find their own paths through the experience.

Designed for public spaces, Those Before Us was staged outdoors in Nolan Park on New York City's Governors Island. Audiences are asked to arrive equipped with a fully charged smartphone (and, for Android users, a QR scanner app) and to either bring headphones or reserve one of a limited number of Bose AR glasses (basically, wearable blue-tooth speakers that interface with your phone via the Bose Connect app). Upon checking in, audience members scan a QR code leading to a short "onboarding" audio file and are given a small map (which also includes a QR code linking to the show's program). The map details the starting and ending points of the show, as well as four color-coded circuits and a few other points of interest. At each point on the map, there are corresponding QR codes mounted on a tree that link to further audio files, and each of the color-coded and numbered points on the map contributes a narrative set in a specific year: 1637 (voiced by Jesse Carrey), 1878 (voiced by Grace Rao), 1917 (voiced by Ashton Muniz), and 1964 (Zach Fifer). In addition, selections from Native American music and songs by Loretta Lynn, Morton Harvey, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, and others are incorporated into these narratives at various points. There is also a live dancer associated with each narrative path, and a dash of color on these primarily white-clad dancers—Daan Bootsma (1637), Mallory Galarza (1878), Ashton Muniz (1917), and Kerime Konur (1964)—helps you to follow the dancer along a particular narrative thread (the dancers also helpfully incorporate touching the next significant tree into their performances). Of course, one doesn't have to follow any kind of linear path, either overall (on the day that we attended, it didn't take very long for the large group that began the show all together to fragment) or within any individual story.

As a title, Those Before Us can be read in two ways, both as referring to the layers of history that the production draws attention to and to the way in which the combination of dancers and voiceovers bring characters linked to this history literally before us. These persons range from a Dutch settler unhappily aligned with a capital-based concern intent on exploiting the indigenous residents of the city to a white woman becoming a nineteenth-century military wife, a black man going to fight in WWI, and a man born into a military family facing displacement and the razing of everything on the island, including the nature that he has heretofore resented. Racism, sexism, and exploitation of course figure in these individual stories, and the fact that the costumes of the dancers, whose movements express the general emotion of each narrative fragment rather than directly corresponding to the unfolding plot, accumulate dirt and natural debris—especially in the case of Bootsma and Muniz—might be seen as symbolizing not only the struggles of life and history but also the way that grains of history accumulate and its rootedness in location and the land.

The quartet of personal, historical stories sits within a clever dystopian frame. At the outset, audiences are welcomed to the Terrarium Museum of Natural History, a place that has reconstructed life as it was before the "Great Explosion." This pre-recorded message (voiced by Katya Stepanov) is interrupted by the voice of "Maya" (Vincent Lidie), to whom you are connected via the trees. Maya talks about a future on a planet that has undergone extensive damage and in which a "High Council" disappears people, has erased history, and controls what we know. He thus asks for your help in finding memories as a means to restore truth and knowledge. As records for heat and glacier melting are continually broken and drafts of executive orders by the U.S. government to censor the internet are leaked, Maya's future seems barely speculative, but in Those Before Us, the atemporal final act, "Convergence," is ultimately hopeful, arranging everyone in a circle and focusing on unity, peace, and restoration.

We admit to having a bit of trouble with our 4G at the start, which caused playback issues, but once we successfully logged into the Governors Island wi-fi, everything came together smoothly for an enjoyable and unique experience that was simultaneously individual and communal. Rebis is hoping to bring Those Before Us to other locations in the future, and we look forward to what this innovative group of artists creates next. - Leah Richards & John Ziegler

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When Water Strikes Back

Brandon Judell — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 14:14:15 +0000

When Water Strikes Back Brandon Judell August 11, 2019 - 10:14

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documentary

Samuel Coleridge's Ancient Mariner once bemoaned: "Water, water everywhere,/Nor any drop to drink." Likewise, director/writer/cinematographer/editor Victor Kossakovsky isn't shown getting to drink any H2O either in this documentary of sorts, Aquarela. You can be certain, though, he got quite battered, doused, and nearly frozen by his subject matter since the 90 minutes of footage we do get to view is far from a tranquil day on the lake.

Across five countries, including Russia, Greenland, and Mexico, plus a hurricane-wrought Miami, Kossakovsky and his various crews scurry about, capturing the dangers of driving a car on icy lakes, the majesty of miles of frozen terrain, the ferocity and sublimity of sailing on the tossing seas, and so forth. As if they knew they were being filmed for posterity, several icebergs do graceful somersaults as if on command, displeased rains pound relentlessly at mankind and flood the avenues, dogs bark, and rivers flow.

This is an almost meditative experience. You feel at times that you should be watching Aquarela in lotus position. The overwhelming visuals and the natural sounds of water traveling are blissfully engaging, but then Kossakovsky irrationally pulls you out of his cinematic ode to Nature and her bipolar personality with the truly grating musical posturings of Finnish composer Eicca Toppinen and his "cello-metal" band, Apocalyptica. I was not alone with hands on ears whenever Eicca's caterwauling pounced from the speakers. Happily, this was not often.

That aural horror aside, please note there is no narration here, no hints to where the film has relocated itself to in each scene, and only a handful of words spoken, but then water knows no boundaries and needs no words.

Elsewhere, however, Kossakovsky has shared his intentions:

"I wanted to film every possible emotion that can be experienced while interacting with water --beautiful emotions, along with the unsettling emotions of ecstasy and inspiration, as well as destruction and human devastation."

The poet Lucy Larcom noted eons ago that "a drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us." Miss Lucy would no doubt agree that Aquarela takes a few giant steps in that direction.

(Sony Pictures Classics will release the film on August 16, 2019, in LA and in NY at the Landmark at 57 West, AMC Empire (at 48 frames per second) and the Angelika Film Center (at 48 frames per second). Film was shot at 96 frames per second.)

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Video of the Week: "Holy Ghost Fire"

Dusty Wright — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 20:00:21 +0000

Video of the Week: "Holy Ghost Fire" Dusty Wright August 6, 2019 - 16:00

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country music

Can you imagine MTV playing this video in its heyday? No way. Not with a pre-music narrative that unfolds before the first music note is struck 1:24 into this killer country rock song by singer-songwriter Paul Cauthen. With an undeniable baritone vocal -- part Waylon Jennings meets Johnny Cash -- "Holy Ghost Fire" burns it the way down. It's the first single from the Texas native's second album Room 41 (released September 6th).

"Got the Holy Ghost fire and it's burning in me /

I've got the Holy Ghost fire, and it's burning down these streets."

Directed by Gus Black, the video begins with a sermon from our Man-In-Black. The temptation of the flesh is too much for our preacher. As the blues-rock funk groove keeps things percolating, there is no hiding from this tantalizing "sermon." It just keeps caterwauling forward. Catch him on tour now.

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Fairy Tales Don't Come True

Dusty Wright — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 16:11:05 +0000

Fairy Tales Don't Come True Dusty Wright July 29, 2019 - 12:11

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Film Review

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drama

In Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino takes on 1969 with pop culture precision and aplomb. Audacious, rockin', and funny in spots, this is more an homage to an era that would be transformed by the Manson Family's murder spree in Beverly Hills. If Woodstock created an aura of peace, love and happiness, the Manson murders shattered that hippie idealism instantly. And Tarantino has decided to shatter that aura yet again in the last 15 minutes of his film. Albeit in a rewrite of history, much like he did in his brilliant fantasy WWII war film Inglourious Basterds. His latest movie lacks any real plot and is more an homage or perhaps a "love letter" to old Hollywood. The struggle of the actors (and stuntmen) that seek to maintain the relevance in a world that would as soon discard them for the next star-in-waiting.

Leonardo DiCaprio as fading TV star Rick Dalton (of Bounty Hunt) and Brad Pitt as his longtime stuntman Cliff Booth are terrific in their scenes together, you can feel an authentic chemistry between the two actors. Could they be the perfect pairing for a remake of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Pitt did play him the prequel and there was chatter a few years ago about Pitt and George Clooney in a remake. No coincidence that that film was released in 1969. And Tarantino did state in a press conference during CinemaCon in Vegas back in April that:

"Sony and myself will be coming to the theaters with the most exciting star dynamic since Paul Newman and Robert Redford."

Clocking in at 2 hours and 45-minutes, the movie does sag in the middle, an edit of 15-20 minutes would have definitely helped. But like all of his films, Tarantino's recreation of the era is painstakingly accurate. From his black and white early '60's TV shows and sets to the rock and pop music of the era -- always a plus in his movies -- to him recreating blocks of Hollywood Boulevard, the filmmaker lets the audience "feel" the era on the big screen. You almost taste the endless cigarette smoking in cars, bars, movie trailers, and houses in the hills of Beverly. And there are plenty of guest spots with veteran actors like Kurt Russell, Mike Madsen, Al Pacino, Timothy Olyphant, Bruce Dern, and Luke Perry (RIP).

Sadly the stunning Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate doesn't have a lot to say or do in this movie, her most memorable scene is watching herself in the Dean Martin Matt Helm film The Wrecking Crew. As she sits in a Hollywood Boulevard movie theater she's thrilled to watch the audience's positive reaction to her comedic scenes. Major shoutout to 10-year old actor Julia Butters who plays Trudi on the fictitious TV show Lancer. It's truly a scene stealing moment with DiCaprio. His character Rick Dalton has the epiphany that she's a rising star and his star is nearly extinguished. Her dialogue is so fluid and beautiful with him, it will melt your heart. While this is not the best film from Tarantino, it's certainly a worthwhile way to spend three hours on a hot summer's day.

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The Day Originality Died

Brandon Judell — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 22:29:31 +0000

The Day Originality Died Brandon Judell July 23, 2019 - 18:29

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comedy

I kept thinking throughout Peter Parlow's cleverly conceived "comedy" that I should be laughing. "I really need a coffee for this!" was my second and third thoughts. Then: "Hey, I bet those indieWire critics and J. Hoberman guffawed into their popcorn when reviewing this."

Let me go check what others actually opined.

Variety's Jessica Kiang:

"An intellectually ticklish, micro-budget, low-grade-video movie with metatextual wit to burn." Not bad.

Hollywood Reporter: "[I]t's easy to walk away from The Plagiarists thinking nothing of much significance was accomplished. [However,] the film improves upon reflection." True . . . true.

This plotless cornucopia of semi-pseudo-intellectual ponderings begins with a car giving up in a bewintered countryside. The very white Anna (Lucy Kaminsky) and Tyler (Eamon Monaghan), lovers and inhabitants of the aforementioned auto, immediately start letting loose on each other. (Rocky Horror's Brad and Janet had to cope with a similar, yet more musical, mechanical mishap.)

The insecure Anna, by the way, a former shoplifter of panties from Victoria's Secret, is in the midst of writing a memoir-based novel while the cocksure Tyler is a would-be director, whose main gig at the moment is as a DP on an Evian ad.

"I'm supposed to be back tonight. Philly," he notes.

So what is a couple to do but bicker and freeze to death? Thankfully, Clip (the superb Michael "Clip" Payne), a black resident of the area, shows up and invites the duo to his home, including the use of his bathroom down the hall, and his phone to get a mechanic.

Uh-oh, is this guy "sketchy?" Anna wonders. Is she stuck in a Get Out scenario in reverse? And why is there a white child playing upstairs in his house? Is this Clip's child, is he a babysitter, or . . . ?

Happily, Clip might just be what he seems, a nice guy who lets the couple dine and sleep over, while he has sex with an unseen, rather orgasmically noisy woman in the room nearby. Earlier in the evening, though, Tyler snoops around the house, coming across highly sophisticated but dated camera equipment while the host beguiles Anna with tales of his youth:

"Little did I know then that every detail of this landscape, and every single person living in it, would forever be lodged in my memory with a ring as true as perfect pitch."

Anna also cooks dinner:

"Look at the sauce. It looks like vomit."

The next day, the auto is fixed, and everyone goes back to their everyday routines in their proper locales.

Jump ahead to six months. It's summer, and Tyler and Annie are back on the road. They're driving to visit a friend, Allison (the deliciously quirky Emily Davis), heading up to the country again. While Tyler chats away on varied topics with unearned bravado such as the current disavowal of the Shaken Baby Syndrome and the nonexistence of sex trafficking, Annie is reading Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle, Book 3. Suddenly, a look of disturbance creeps onto her brow. Everything Clip had told her about his life is taken word for word from this acclaimed work. He had plagiarized Knausgaard's life. Why? she wants to know with a fury that knows no end.

Even after arriving at Allison's, her anger doesn't abate. But, hey! isn't her own manuscript, which cannibalizes her friends', although pleasantly, plagiarized in a way, too? And what about Tyler's tormenting monologues? He’s no doubt unconsciously based them on half-heard call-in shows, and his delivery is very Seinfeld on crack.

Then what about the rest of us? Have any of us ever had an original thought? As Mark Twain noted, "What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before."

So, admittedly, the greater the distance in time I'm away from having watched The Plagiarists, the more I enjoy it. (I mean who's still pondering Dark Phoenix five minutes after the credits roll?) Possibly, that's just what the screenwriters, James N. Kienitz and Robin Schavoir, and the film's hipsterish, Woody-Allenesque director desired.

Filmed in a week over 6 months, Parlow describes his effort as "a contemporary story that happens to be captured on old videotape which still exists as new videotape ('deadstock' or 'new-old stock' as it is called on E-Bay)." I’m sure that means a whole lot to some folks, otherwise why put it in the press notes? Consequently or not, I will be running to view Parlow's next offering, which hopefully I'll relish simultaneously as I view it.

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Cutting Up Space and Time

Leah Richards — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 17:09:02 +0000

Cutting Up Space and Time Leah Richards July 10, 2019 - 13:09

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Theater Review

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avant garde

Photo Credit: Maria Baranova

DECODER: Ticket that Exploded

Text by WIlliam S. Burroughs

Conceived and directed by Mallory Catlett

Presented by Restless NYC at Pioneer Works, NYC

July 8, 2019

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Beat Generation artist and writer William S. Burroughs popularized the "cut-up technique," a method dating to at least the Dada movement of cutting up a text or texts and rearranging the pieces to form a new composition. Burroughs employed a "fold-in" variation (reading across two vertically folded sheets placed side by side to create a new page) for his novel The Ticket that Exploded, first published in 1962 and in a revised and expanded version in 1967. This story of mind control and intergalactic conflict also describes Burroughs's theories about language, technology, and the cut-up technique, and it forms part of The Nova Trilogy, along with The Soft Machine (1961, revised 1966 and 1968) and Nova Express (1964). With DECODER: The Ticket that Exploded, creator and director Mallory Catlett, in collaboration with video designer Keith Skretch, associate video designed Simon Harding, interaction designer Ryan Holsopple, and scholar Alex Wermer-Colan, Burroughs's novel is reimagined, partly through his own techniques, as a psychedelic live enactment that assembles language, imagery, and sound into an engrossing experience somewhere between theater and performance art.

Played out in this performance on a raised stage in the cavernous interior of Pioneer Works in Red Hook, DECODER is brought to fractured life by collaborators and performers G. Lucas Crane and Jim Findlay. Crane, the "tape DJ" and sound artist, acts as the primary operator of the onstage audiovisual equipment -- and provides an excellent lemur call -- while Findlay handles the spoken portions of the production. The spoken elements use Burroughs's own words, and audience members can catch indications of his influence on in phrases such as "well, that's like hypnotizing chickens," borrowed from The Ticket That Exploded by Iggy Pop in "Lust for Life," and "heavy metal," first appearing in print in The Soft Machine. The cassette tape recorders that Crane so skillfully manipulates are referred to in pre-recorded dialogue early on in the show as an "externalized part of the human nervous system," and they are positioned in relation to "the Word," what it is and what can be done with and to it, not least the assertion that cut-up offers a means of being one's own agent. While there is, unsurprisingly, no conventional narrative, DECODER does evince a loose thematic structure, with other sections with spoken and recorded text about, for example, sexuality (at some points as "flesh addiction" and at others as a kind of literal merging of bodies), war (as, in one memorable passage, an ongoing game the only possible end to which is the atomic destruction of all the players), and questions about topics including time, self, and embodiment.

Juxtaposition represents an important aspect of the cut-up technique, creating and influencing meaning, and the various forms of "the Word" in the production are juxtaposed not only to one another but also to sound- and image-scapes throughout. The large trapezoidal screen at the back of the stage is filled with images that range from Crane's hands as he works or his face as we hear his amplified breathing to a distorted portion of Findlay's face as he declaims from beneath a welder's mask to insects, trees, tentacles, claws, and, in a visual metaphor for the "war game," the repetitive, mechanical stacking of logs. Often, when the projected images are distorted, it is along a vertical fold, much as Burroughs recommends for pages in the fold-in technique. At times, they also resolve into unexpected forms or accrue unexpected meaning, as when, through repetitive juxtaposition, a microphone held by Mike Pence becomes associated with a masturbated phallus, an oddly posed body shows up in a wooded landscape, or the bright whiteness, which juxtaposition with the dialogue leads one initially to think might represent outer space, is eventually clarified as snow through which a lone figure walks. Crane and Findlay themselves are central elements of some striking images, their bodies silhouetted, serving as canvases for flashing lights, or badly (on purpose) lip-syncing recorded questions. Crane is extremely impressive and has an engaging presence, and it would be easy to overlook how good Findlay's performance is because of the non-traditional part, but he adds energy and nuance to his role as primary conduit of the Word, as when he touches Crane during a particular speech or in the modulation that occurs when he sets aside the novel from which he has been reading directly and his delivery becomes subtly but clearly more hesitant, immediate, and, thus, seemingly authentic.

Late in DECODER is a discussion of a giant mechanical brain used by enemy forces that works through aggregating images and words and sounds like what we now call A.I. The dialogue recommends guerilla war against it, in one of a couple of times when the "you" seems to deliberately include the audience. Burroughs held that the cut-up technique can militate against the way that word and image lock us in to conventional modes and patterns of thought and perception. DECODER: Ticket that Exploded provides an intriguingly avant garde, visually arresting, and even at some points funny volley in this crusade against conventionality. And this is just the start: the full Nova Trilogy will premiere at the Chocolate Factory in Queens in 2020, to further rearrange our expectations of what theater can be. - Leah Richards & John Ziegler

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Waging Heavy Music

Dusty Wright — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 16:26:08 +0000

Waging Heavy Music Dusty Wright June 24, 2019 - 12:26

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Music Review

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singer-songwriter

I finally got around to reading Neil Young's exceptional, non-linear, 2012 autobiography Waging Heavy Peace and it got me thinking about his recorded output of music. Moreover, it got me thinking about the presentation of not just his catalog, but all of my favorite recorded music, and why I've fallen in love with vinyl... again. There's something organic and soothing and dynamic about music that was captured on analog equipment and released on an organic format, i.e., vinyl. Knowing how committed Neil is to presenting his music in its highest audio state -- his short-lived Pono Music player was created to share the highest-resolution digital music available any where and his commitment to release a treasure trove of material from his archives sounding as best they could is not beyond admirable. Having finished his 502 page book, and having gotten back into vinyl again, I couldn't wait to hear some of his recently released archival content in analog.

Neil Young: Hitchhiker (Reprise)

Volume 2 of the Neil Young Archives Performance Series -- the Performance Series of the Neil Young Archives is composed of never before released live performances -- was originally recorded in 1976 but not released until August of 2017. It's an all acoustic album recorded live in the studio on August 11, 1976 at Indigo Studio's in Malibu, CA. The 10-track album contains some of Young's better known tunes plus two previously unreleased tracks. As was the case with most Neil's best albums, it was produced by Young's long-time studio collaborator David Briggs. This new release adds post production work by John Hanlon. He's produced his most recent works including Peace Trail, Earth, and The Monsanto Years.

The songs were recorded in a single session and the simplicity of just Neil's voice, occasional harmonica, and acoustic guitar capture the magic that Rick Rubin displayed on his Johnny Cash sessions. Naked and vulnerable. Many of the songs would not appear on vinyl until years later. "Hitchhiker," for example, did not officially appear until 2010's Le Noise and naturally sounds worlds apart from the original. Moreover, the acoustic version herein of "Powderfinger" is much tamer than the Crazy Horse rocking raggedness on Rust Never Sleeps.

Hitchhiker contains two previously unreleased tracks that have remained in the vaults since '76. The epic heartfelt ballad "Hawaii" is a personal tale of loss. Followed by "Give Me Strength" a mid-tempo love song Neil use to perform live in the mid-'70s. His mournful harmonica playing add a touch of emotional poignancy to the acoustic proceedings.

Neil Young: Roxy - Tonight's The Night Live (Reprise)

In 1973 Neil Young (guitar, piano, harmonica, vocals) along with Billy Talbot (bass), Ralph Molina (drums), Nils Lofgren (piano & guitar), and Ben Keith (pedal steel & slide guitar) recorded Tonight's The Night, an homage in sorts to losing his comrades Danny Whitten (Crazy Horse) and roadie Bruce Berry to heroin overdoses. After finishing the album (wouldn't be released for 2 more years), he decided to celebrate with a gig at the newly opened Roxy on Sunset Strip. Released in 2018 for the first time on 2-lps/3 glorious sides of vinyl, it's Neil and his Santa Monica Flyers in all of their loose and ragged glory. The playing is tight, the mood upbeat, the audience lucky to have witnessed a new set of music in its entirety with Neil at the height of his musical prowess. This album -- Volume 4 in the Performance Series -- doesn't have the heavy dark vibe of the studio release. Neil cracks jokes and asides between songs. "Welcome to Miami Beach," he states at the beginning of the set. The band adds an impromptu cover of "Roll Out The Barrel" before launching into "Mellow My Mind." "Tired Eyes" is especially poignant even after another more "welcome to Miami Beach" banter warning the audience that it is indeed "a sad song." Neil's electrical guitar playing is wonderfully mournful against Keith's pedal steel. My favorite track from Tonight's The Night, studio or live.

Neil Young & Stray Gators: Tuscaloosa (Reprise)

Released a few weeks ago, this is Volume 5 of the Neil Young Archives Performance Series and it is a must-own collection of killer tunes with his fab band the Stray Gators -- Tim Drummond on bass, Kenny Buttrey on drums, Jack Nitzche on piano, and Ben Keith on pedal steel & slide guitar). This archival set was recorded in February 1973 at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Besides songs from Time Fade Aways, the set list included five tunes from Harvest, the title tune from After The Gold Rush, and "Here We Are in the Years" from his debut Neil Young. According to Neil:

"Tuscaloosa is as close as Time Fades Away II that we'll get."

Indeed it is. There is an energy that just swings. His band swings with an ease that allows Neil to sing and play with ease and comfort, like a pair of your favorite jeans. Plus there's an edge that is missing from many of the studio versions of these tunes. Listen to that energy crackle on "New Mama" a tune from "Tonight's The Night." It's a much different vibe, too. "Don't Be Denied" closes this set and it's an extension of the band's prowess and Neil's command of his material.

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Robert Kidney One-Take - "Back To Disaster"

Dusty Wright — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 14:17:09 +0000

Robert Kidney One-Take - "Back To Disaster" Dusty Wright June 19, 2019 - 10:17

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Vidcast

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blues

Robert Kidney of 15-60-75 (The Numbers Band) leads The Golden Palominos in a killer version of his original song "Back To Disaster" from our Dusty Wright One-Take archives. This was recorded at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC in May 2010.

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What's That Sound?

Dusty Wright — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 17:52:17 +0000

What's That Sound? Dusty Wright June 13, 2019 - 13:52

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Film Review

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documentary

Singer-songwriter & executive producer Jakob Dylan (The Wallflowers) and director & former label man Andrew Slater have crafted a loving homage to one of my favorite era's of music. The physical area of Los Angeles known as Laurel Canyon became the epicenter of folk-rock aka the "California Sound" and was home to some of the best and biggest recording acts of the mid-'60s. The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Mamas & The Papas, Arthur Lee's Love (conspicuously missing from the film), it was quite the scene. In fact, many point to Roger McGuinn and The Byrds for ushering in the genre, though The Beatles (George Harrison) used 12-string guitars on the mid-'60s tunes. Regardless, McGuinn took Bob Dylan's epic folk tale "Mr. Tamborine Man" and with his trusty 3-pickup Rickenbacker electric 12-string guitar out front and center there was no looking back. That clean jingle jangle sound would become a cornerstone of folk-rock forever. According to Slater:

"The thread for the film is really more about the echo than it is about the Canyon -- the echo of these artists' ideas, and how their own creativity reverberated between the houses in the Canyon, and ultimately across to England where it changes the course of the Beatles."

Echo in the Canyon contains candid conversations and performances with Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, David Crosby, John Sebastian, Brian Wilson, Ringo Starr, Michelle Phillips, Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills, and Roger McGuinn as well as contemporary musicians they influenced such as Tom Petty (in his very last film interview), Cat Power, Beck, Fiona Apple, Norah Jones, and Regina Spektor. Framed by an Echo concert that Jakob organized in 2015 with many of the contemporary musicians mentioned above, much of the performance footage from that concert is interspersed throughout the doc. While offering proof of the timeless staying power of those tunes -- though I prefer the originals -- Laurel Canyon's musical heritage continues to reverberate today! You can sort out movie tickets here.